The depletion of light and medium crude oil reserves has forced the extraction and refining of increasingly heavier crude oils, among other economic and technological type of implications, this problem has constrained the functionality of existing refineries in the world, as they were designed and built exclusively for processing light and medium crude oils and their mixtures.
Hence, many refineries have had to limit their operations and compete for the purchase of light and medium crude oils whose prices have been increasingly high.
Other refineries have invested in the installation of alternative processes that allow them for refining heavy and extra-heavy crude oils, some of these technologies are likely to be installed upstream to the processing of the heavy oil fraction (vacuum residue) such as: delayed coking, catalytic cracking of residue, solvent deasphalting, however, these technologies do not solve the initial problem of refining heavy crude.
The state-of-the-art closest to the present invention, by referring to the use of processes which combine multiple steps and/or refining steps (combined processes) to improve the properties of the heavy and extra-heavy crude oils, is here represented by the following patent documents:                U.S. Pat. No. 4,591,426, dated May 27, 1986, protects a process that combines several technologies to improve the properties of heavy crude oils, characterized by mild reaction conditions and high liquid-hourly space velocity. It involves mainly the following stages: (1) The hydrocracking of heavy oil atmospheric residue in a bubble upflow reactor, (2) The hydrotreating of distillates with final boiling temperature of 340° C. in a separate unit, (3) The deasphalting of heavy residue (510° C.+), and (4) The hydrotreating of deasphalted oil mixed with atmospheric residue. In this process a heavy crude oil with the following properties: 12° API, 2.9 weight % sulfur, 8.7 weight % asphaltenes, 11.1 weight % Conradson carbon, 56 vol. % residue (565° C.+) and 320 ppmw of vanadium, yields a synthetic crude of 27° API, 0.1 weight % sulfur, undetectable vanadium and 6 vol. % residue (565° C.+). The process yields 96 vol. % of heavy crude oil with 10 vol. % naphtha (final boiling temperature up to 190° C.). Hydrogen consumption is approximately 1.95 weight % of heavy crude oil and 40% of this weight is used in hydrocracking.        U.S. Pat. No. 6,303,089, dated Oct. 16, 2001, claims a combined hydrotreating process in which a gas stream rich in hydrogen can be recovered. In this process the gas stream is separated into two, a light hydrocarbon stream including hydrogen sulfide that is sent to the treatment of sour gases. The light fraction rich in hydrogen gas is recycled to the process to take advantage of it in the hydrotreating reactor. Moreover it involves the integration of solvent deasphalting, gasification and hydrotreating processes. The heavy fraction of crude oil is separated by solvent deasphalting in a section. This fraction may be gasified to generate hydrogen, energy, steam and synthesis gas.        U.S. 2002/0130063, published Sep. 19, 2002, claims a process for hydrotreatment of petroleum fractions which operates in at least two stages, a hydrodesulfurization and a hydrodearomatization, where it is possible to use separation zones in each one of them to recover the light fractions obtained. The feed to the reactors may be lateral to acquire countercurrent flow and maintain high values of the catalytic conversion and low pressure drop across the bed.        U.S. Pat. No. 6,447,671, dated Sep. 10, 2002, calls for a process of conversion of petroleum fractions in two steps: hydroconversion and hydrotreatment. The process is applied on feeds of hydrocarbons with at least 0.1 weight % of sulfur and an initial boiling point of at least 340° C. The first stage involves the treatment of hydrocarbon feed in a three-phase reactor with ebullated catalyst bed, the second stage involves the separation of catalyst particles entrained with the hydrocarbon, and finally, the third stage includes separation and processing of the light fraction and optionally a fixed-bed hydrotreating of the converted liquid fraction.        U.S. Pat. No. 4,756,821, dated Jul. 12, 1988, protects a hydrotreating process or hydro viscoreduction, wherein the heavy hydrocarbon feed is contacted with finely dispersed catalyst in the liquid phase. In order to separate the product from the catalyst, the effluent is passed through an inorganic membrane wall. The non-filtered oil containing a high concentration of catalyst is recycled to the reactor of hydroconversion. The filtered oil is the product of this process.        U.S. Pat. No. 4,655,905, dated Apr. 7, 1987, refers to a catalytic process in fixed-bed or moving-bed of a catalyst supported on alumina with at least one metal or compound of VB, VIB and VIII groups of the periodic table. This process considers the addition of at least one compound of a metal such as Mo, W, Ni, Co or Cr, particularly it is recommended the use of compounds such as halides, oxyhalides, oxides, polyacids such as poly isopolyacids and heteropolyacids and their salts; moreover halogenated compounds containing chlorine, bromine or iodine, the use of molybdenum compounds alone or in combination with nickel or cobalt is especially advantageous and molybdenum, phosphomolybdic acid and their salts are compounds which produce the best results.        U.S. Pat. No. 6,277,270, dated Aug. 21, 2001, protects a conversion process of hydrocarbons obtained from atmospheric distillation of crude oil comprising the following steps: a) vacuum distillation, b) hydrotreating the vacuum residue in at least a fixed-bed reactor at conditions that allow for reducing the sulfur content, c) hydroconversion of this residue in a three-phase ebullated-bed reactor. Finally, a catalytic cracking stage can be added for obtaining valuable distillate fractions. The process includes several steps of distillation of the heavy and light fractions to obtain valuable distillates.        U.S. Pat. No. 4,534,847, dated Aug. 13, 1985, protects a process characterized by heating a mixture of a hydrocarbon in the presence of a recycled solvent. The product of this process is separated into gas, liquid and solids through a vacuum distillation. The gas products having a boiling point lower than 454° C. undergo a distillation step to recover the used solvent. The ash-free liquid product is subjected to hydrotreating to obtain a product with low sulfur and nitrogen contents.        U.S. 2003/0111387, published Jun. 19, 2003, processes a middle distillate in the same vacuum gas oil hydrotreating plant or in the hydrocracking reactor at moderate conditions. Saving costs are allowed when a hydrotreater separated from middle distillate is not required. The main benefit of this process is that cracked feed such as light cycle oil, coker light gas oil, visbreaking gasoil or straight-run gasoil can be simultaneously hydrotreated by using the same existing equipment in the hydrocracking plant.        U.S. Pat. No. 6,306,287, dated Oct. 23, 2001, discloses a hydrotreating process in at least two steps involving a hydrodemetallization stage and second stage of hydrodesulfurization. Hydrodemetallization stage comprises two or more metal removal zones arranged in a series of reactors. In this process, an additional amount of a middle distillate is also fed and may also include hydroviscoreduction and solvent deasphalting stages.        U.S. Pat. No. 5,417,846, dated May 23, 1995, protects a very similar process to that of U.S. Pat. No. 6,306,287 B1, where the difference is that the hydrodemetallization zone comprises two or more zones, each one loaded with hydrodemetallization fixed-bed catalyst, where these hydrodemetallization zones operate alternately.        U.S. Pat. No. 4,396,493, dated Aug. 2, 1983, claims a process for the production of hydrocarbons with low content of Ramsbottom carbon residue. The mixture feed is a vacuum residue obtained by distillation of a crude oil and an asphaltenic bitumen obtained by distillation of a hydrotreated residual oil fraction. This mixture is hydrotreated in order to reduce the content of Ramsbottom Carbon. The obtained product is separated by atmospheric distillation. The atmospheric residue obtained is subjected to a solvent deasphalting process.        U.S. Pat. No. 4,039,429, dated Aug. 2, 1977, claims a process for hydrocarbon conversion involving the following steps: a) fractionation of crude oil by vacuum distillation, b) deasphalting the vacuum residue to obtain a deasphalted product and an asphalt, c) catalytic cracking of vacuum residue and the deasphalted oil, d) atmospheric fractionation of the cracked product to obtain a light fraction, a middle distillate and a residue, e) hydrotreating the intermediate fraction to low pressure conditions, a fraction of this distillate is recycled to the catalytic cracking zone; f) thermal cracking of the asphalt and the residue, g) fractionating the product of thermal cracking at least in a light distillate, an intermediate fraction and thermal residue h) hydrotreating the intermediate fraction of thermal cracking and recirculation of a portion of this product to the cracking zone; i) thermal gasification of the residue and catalytic reaction of product of gasification to produce hydrogen; j) feeding the obtained hydrogen to a hydrotreating zone at high pressure with at least a part of fractions from atmospheric and vacuum distillation k) feeding hydrogen produced to zones of low pressure hydrotreatment of vacuum residue and asphalt; l) feeding hydrogen to low pressure zones for the hydrotreatment of different streams.        U.S. 2009/0261016, published Oct. 22, 2009, protects a process for the conversion of heavy feedstocks involving the following steps: mixing the hydrocarbon with a hydrogenation catalyst and further sending the mixture to a hydrotreatment zone in which hydrogen is added alone or as a mixture of hydrogen with hydrogen sulfide; the product of this zone containing the slurry catalyst is sent to a first distillation zone which has several flash separation steps, atmospheric and vacuum distillation, the heavy fraction, rich in metal sulfides produced by the hydrodemetallization of the feed, is sent to a solvent deasphalting zone to obtain two products: a deasphalted oil which is sent to hydrotreatment, and the heavy fraction that is cleaned of dispersed catalyst to be sent to the first hydrotreating zone, which processes the heavier fractions.        U.S. Pat. No. 7,651,604, dated Jan. 26, 2010, protects a two stages process for catalytic hydrotreating at conditions of low pressure and in fixed-bed or ebullated-bed reactors. Hydrotreating is accomplished in two stages, the first of hydrodemetallization and the second of hydrotreatment. With this process, it is viable to obtain better quality crudes and higher content of most valuable distillates.        
Previous technologies known by the applicant, were overcome by the present invention, since these technologies relate to conversion of crude processes for obtaining hydrocarbon cuts that can be refined upstream by means of known processes such as catalytic cracking, hydroconversion, deasphalting or coking, however, none of the cited references note and even suggest a hydroconversion-distillation process of heavy and/or extra-heavy crude oils.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a process which comprises the catalytic hydroconversion of heavy and/or extra-heavy crude oils, and the distillation of the hydrotreated products.
An additional object of the present invention is to provide a process to obtain products that can be processed in conventional refining schemes, designed to operate with light and intermediate crudes.